One Valentine
by Keitorin Asthore
Summary: All seven-year-old Harry wants is one Valentine. But who will give it to him? One-shot.


Harry stared at the rough surface of his wooden desk and swung his legs back and forth. At seven and a half, he was undersized for his age, and his feet still didn't touch the ground. The other kids liked to make fun of the "midget." He was used to it. Mostly.

The second grade classroom was decorated in garishly bright pink and red streamers. A cheerfully decorated shoebox in a similar color scheme was placed on each desk. The little second graders flitted from box to box, dropping in small envelopes and bags of candy and giggling as they saw gifts dropped in their own boxes. The boys stuffed as much candy as they could down their throats; the girls compared their pretty pink, red, and white dresses.

He smoothed his fingers along the etched lines and letters on his desk. Little Whinging Elementary was old; Aunt Petunia said that she had gone to school in the very same rooms when she was small. Harry nearly laughed as he imagined his tall, horsey Aunt Petunia as a second grader. He traced the messages left in the desk. DR loves CN, BJK has cooties, LE was here, ASM is weird, I love HM.

Harry sighed and poked his box with a pencil. His box was battered and faded- he'd found in the garbage outside Mrs. Figg's house. The construction paper covering it consisted of scraps left over from Dudley's box. He glanced over at his cousin's desk; the large box that once held Uncle Vernon's work boots was brilliant red and stuffed to bursting with valentines and candy. Harry poked the box again; this time the lead popped through the weak, gluey paper and left a grayish ringed hole on the orangey-pink paper.

For the millionth time he lifted the lid of the box and peeked inside. It was still as empty as it had been three minutes ago. No one had dropped a note in his box, not even a piece of candy. It was completely barren. Totally empty.

He should have known better. His aunt and uncle were right. No one loved him.

Harry stared at his desk, memorizing the wood grain and counting the dots until at long last the bell rang. The other little second graders flooded out, clutching their stuffed little boxes and gleefully showing the contents to the beaming parents who'd come to collect them. Dudley ran to his mother, holding up his box as Aunt Petunia beamed at him. Harry dug the toe of his little sneaker in the rough dirty gravel of the playground. He'd tossed the box out on the way out of the classroom.

From across the playground he could hear the scrunching noise of small shoes running on gravel. He figured it was some other kid running to his mother. But then the little runner started calling out.

"Harry! Harry, wait!"

He turned around to see a little girl racing towards him. "Wait for me!" she puffed. The little girl skidded to a stop, the skirts of her white dress fluffing about her knees.

"What do you want?" he asked, a bit dully.

She beamed and tucked a strand of red hair out of her eyes. "I have a Valentine for you, silly!" she said cheerfully. She reached into her pocket and pulled out an envelope. "Sorry it's a little crushed. I had to carry it in my pocket for ages and ages."

Harry smiled shyly at her. "Thanks," he said.

The little girl cupped his face in her hands and kissed the top of his head. "I love you very very much," she confided. Then she spun on the toe of her clean Mary Janes and darted back through the crowd. Harry stared after her, until he finally thought to open the envelope.

Inside was a large red and white card, decorated with glitter that showered his small hands. The little girl had drawn two small stick figures, one labeled "you" and the other labeled "me." "You" had sloppy black hair and very large glasses, while "me" had very long hair scribbled in with an orangey-red crayon. Big hearts were drawn all around them, and the two stick figures had big, happy smiles. There was no name on the card, but as Harry turned it around he saw two initials.

L.E.

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Author's Note: Phweeeee…got the idea this morning, and decided to scribble it off during Art II because it's Junior Day and all the juniors are gone, so we're not painting. Yay!

Anyways, this might be a little hard to explain…if you don't get this story, email me, and I'll try to straighten it out…

Well, the reason this is Valentine's Day-themed is because IT'S MY EIGHTEENTH BIRTHDAY and I really wanted to write something. Kind of like a b-day present to me.

Yay!

Also...this is my forty-eighth (I think!) story. Anyone want to write a oneshot/draw a picture for me to put on my website to commemorate my fiftieth! I'll give you cookies and lots of advertisting on my site-begs-

Oh, for fun: The initials on Harry's desk: DH is a boy who had a crush on me from third grade to ninth grade, and everyone (including my mother!) knew about it except me, CN is me, obviously (I'm not saying my last name), BJK is a particularly nasty nasty girl I know who thought it would be fun to hold a sleepover with all our friends, proceed to point out all my faults and discuss them at length for an hour and a half in front of everyone, then pat me on the shoulder and say "I'm so glad you didn't cry!" (I'm going to use her as a villain character some day...), ASM is my friend Keeton's Harry Potter OC, Aiden Saoirse Michaels, and HM is my OC, Hollister "Holly" Martin, whose favorite phrase is "I KNEW I should have been in Hufflepuff! They never have any adventures!" So yeah.

PS: If anyone has fanart requests, I will do them. Go to the link in my profile to see some of my current works!


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